"If it involves a major dispute between two countries, I'd rather give up this opportunity..."
Nara Motonari's instructions were vague and incomplete. Soji stared at the medicine bottle in front of him, too afraid to take it for quite some time.
A person had to know his own limits...
It wasn't that Yamada Soji was being modest. He was a newly graduated Genin—how could he possibly shoulder such an important responsibility?
But Teacher Motonari said the organization had already studied the matter. Regardless of what the boy himself thought, he was the only one who could carry out this assignment today.
"Why don't you ask what this medicine is for?"
"I don't want to ask." Soji furrowed his brows and backed away even farther than before. "I don't even dare to inquire."
"Hey, you can't do that~" Teacher Motonari grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him back. "Your teacher here comes from the Nara Clan. We're a distinguished family that's supplied medicinal herbs to the village since Konoha was founded, and we've done extensive research into all kinds of secret medicines. I finally have a chance to tell you about them, so let me give you a proper rundown."
"Teacher... If you keep this up, I'm going to call for help."
Soji pressed his lips together.
He wasn't actually going to scream for help at the top of his lungs. It was just that, in this situation, the boy couldn't think of any harsher way to fight back...
"Don't rush. Hear me out before you decide."
Nara Motonari held up a little medicine bottle about as long as his index finger and waved it in front of the boy. "This is an extremely rare secret medicine. Not only is it complicated to make, it's also hard to store for long. Even if we turned the Nara Clan's home upside down, we'd probably find only eight or ten bottles in reserve."
"Since this medicine is so precious, I really can't accept it."
"On the contrary. I think giving it to you is exactly how to put it to good use." Teacher Motonari sprang into action, stuffing the bottle straight into the boy's pocket. "Listen, Soji. Your chakra reserves, control, and nature transformation aren't particularly impressive. In theory, you aren't a natural-born ninja.
"But you're good at Medical Ninjutsu, and you can develop all sorts of secret techniques based on your bloodline ability. That proves you have a special knack for fine chakra control. This secret medicine can help you take that talent to its fullest."
Nara Motonari leaned in close to Soji, enthusiastically promoting his special concoction and explaining what it could do. "This is a rare medicine that can enhance the body's senses in an almost harmless way. It doesn't just improve the usual senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. It even boosts the user's intuition and thinking ability across the board."
"Corticosteroids? Or nitroglycerin?" Soji's medical knowledge had been rebuilt from scratch in the Naruto world, and for a moment he couldn't tell what the medicine was made of.
"The Nara Clan's ancestors did once use that as a basis to make stimulants for war, to improve combatants' reflexes and fighting ability. But taking the undiluted version has a completely different effect!"
"Teacher Motonari, excessive stimulant use can cause serious problems like hormone imbalances. You know that, don't you...?"
"No, no, you're worrying too much." Nara Motonari waved his hands repeatedly, a knowing smile on his face. "The diluted version works much like an ordinary stimulant, but the elders in our clan who've tried the undiluted version usually call it this—
—the Superman Drug."
"Sorry, that sounds even more dangerous than before..."
Because of his memories from his previous life, Soji instinctively associated the name of this medicine with an item from another long-running manga. His suspicions immediately ran wild. "If you drink this, won't your reflexes and physical functions get out of sync, causing serious side effects like time seeming to slow down?"
"Hm? I think you've misunderstood something."
Nara Motonari tapped Soji on the forehead and continued explaining. "Actually, drinking undiluted Superman Drug doesn't multiply the effects of heightened senses. Instead, it makes more senses—which normally can't be clearly perceived—interact more strongly with your conscious mind.
"To put it simply, someone who drinks Superman Drug can not only 'see' the flow of his own chakra and precisely grasp the energy conversions at every stage of a technique. If he has the relevant expertise, he can even use this 'inner vision' to examine his own body!"
"I see... Wait, are you saying...?"
"Well? Think it over~"
As a doctor working at Konoha Hospital, Soji was still wary of a substance with unknown ingredients.
But after taking Teacher Motonari's explanation into account, the boy suddenly realized why the man had chosen this exact moment to give him such a precious medicine, and why he'd even said it would be "put to good use."
In a way, the Superman Drug's effects could not only help with the new chakra conversion method Soji had been training in lately, but also let him make the fullest use of the medical knowledge he'd learned over the past year to examine himself with "inner vision"!
In other words, with this bottle of Superman Drug, there was a good chance Soji could perfect his fake Shinra Tensei, which he'd been cheating his way into using with Accio.
And if he got lucky, he could also review and refine the other ninjutsu he'd mastered before the medicine wore off!
He couldn't just take an opportunity like this to observe the microscopic world of energy through a microscope whenever he wanted.
If he missed it this time, who knew how long it would take him to reach that state of returning to the source through cultivation—and have a heart-to-heart with his liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys!
Still, Soji knew perfectly well that greater rewards meant greater risks...
Whether or not the Superman Drug was as precious as Teacher Motonari claimed, it was clear that if it could bring him such huge benefits, the trouble he'd have to deal with wouldn't be small either.
So before deciding whether to swallow this tempting bait, Soji decided to gather a little more information.
"...I'd like to hear your plan first, if that's all right."
"Of course! As the person actually carrying out this operation, you have the right to know the details in advance."
Nara Motonari patted his prized pupil on the shoulder and finally got to the point. "But before I explain the specifics, I should give you some background first."
"I'm all ears." Soji sat with his legs together.
"As clashes along the border between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire grow increasingly intense, the Hokage and the other elders on the Advisory Council have begun to worry that a major war might break out again. The village's insistence on pushing ahead with the construction of the Jingu Forest Field Hospital is, in itself, a strategic probe."
Teacher Motonari raised his index finger. "Even if war is unavoidable, the timing of its outbreak and the division of the opposing sides will still have countless ties to the direction the war takes. I'm sure you understand that much.
"More specifically, building a Field Hospital is enough in itself to deter the increasingly active Sand Ninja. It could also become an important factor in the strategic decisions of third parties."
"I understand."
Soji gave a slight nod. "In other words, the village is using diplomacy to actively push the conflict toward escalation. It even hopes that this hard-line stance toward other countries will influence how the other great ninja villages make their decisions."
"That's more or less it."
Soji hadn't actually finished what he wanted to say...
Given the political divide between the old and new factions in the village, the leadership centered around the Third Hokage might also be hoping to divert internal tensions.
Once war broke out, the village's highest authority would naturally become more centralized. And by then...
The boy's train of thought hadn't finished when Teacher Motonari raised a second finger.
"Of course, sending the Medical Team to the front lines isn't the only reason. To avoid repeating the mistakes of the last war, Lord Hiruzen has even considered what might happen next if a full-scale war breaks out."
"What exactly do you mean?"
"If Konoha and the Sand Ninja go to war, the Third Hokage hopes to push the front line into the Land of Wind as soon as possible..."
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